Category Archives: Ted Raimi

My Name is Bruce – Bruce Campbell week

Posted on by

This is Bruce Campbell week. My Name is Bruce is currently available on instant Netflix.

WATCH: My Name is Bruce (2006) – Rated R.

“Mistaken for the character he plays in the Evil Dead films, B-movie icon Bruce Campbell (playing himself) is kidnapped by the citizens of a small mining town who want him to save them from a vengeful demon. At first, Campbell thinks it is all part of an elaborate prank. But when he realizes the demon is in fact real, he comes face to face with a second terrifying enemy — his own fear. Ted Raimi co-stars in this tongue-in-cheek comedy.”

Bruce Campbell tackles the rough assignment of directing Bruce Campbell playing Bruce Campbell in this meta-comedy. I will say that no one plays Bruce Campbell better than Bruce Campbell.

Ted Raimi goes back into Evil Dead mode here and plays several characters. He is Mills Toddner, Wing, and the sign painter. He is delightful here in each of the roles.

Grace Thorsen is our female lead, Kelly Graham. She is a down-to-earth mom of the biggest Bruce Campbell fan on the planet (excepting of course Bruce himself). Taylor Sharpe is the aforementioned fan, Jeff and boy is his room loaded with memorabilia.

There is so much Campbell trivia packed into this movie.

Ellen Sandweiss plays Cheryl here and played Cheryl in the Evil Dead.

Dan Hicks plays dirt farmer here and was Jake in Evil Dead II.

Timothy Patrick Quill, who plays Frank, was the blacksmith in Army of Darkness (aka Evil Dead III).

Mark Verheiden, nerd extraordinaire, packs his script with plenty of Campbell references as well. Between name-dropping (Sam Raimi) and phrase borrowing (groovy, boomstick, gimme some sugar baby), there are plenty of in-jokes for die hard Campbell fans.

DVDs of Maniac Cop, Man with the Screaming Brain, Alien Apocalypse, Bubba Ho-Tep as well as some fake Bruce Campbell movies are featured. There of course is a chainsaw featured in a very humorous scene.

My Name is Bruce is in-joke after in-joke and operating on that level, it works fabulously. Unfortunately it delves a lot into some really bad toilet humor. There are unfunny jokes about urine, drinking from a dog bowl, etc. Even though Verheiden is the only one credited with the script, it seems as if two people wrote it.

The other thing wrong with this film is that it is essentially a horror remake of Galaxy Quest and Galaxy Quest was near perfect in script, cast and execution.

Still there are a lot of very funny moments in the film, many of which are not in-jokes. I give this a watch recommendation but if you are a Bruce Campbell fan, this is definitely a must-watch.

People Watch: Associate producer and graphic artist Craig Sanborn cameos as Bowling Shemp.

Man with the Screaming Brain – Bruce Campbell week

Posted on by

This is Bruce Campbell week. Man with the Screaming Brain is currently available on instant Netflix.

PASS: Man with the Screaming Brain (2005) – NR – Not rated.

“B-movie king Bruce Campbell stars in this bizarre tale of murder and mad scientists. Wealthy industrialist William Cole (Campbell) heads to Eastern Europe for a tax shelter. After a maid murders Cole and ex-KGB operative Yegor, a mad scientist merges part of Yegors brain into Coles. Complete opposites, Cole and Yegor fight for control of the body they now share. The odd couple cannot agree on anything except hunting down the murderous maid.”

“You must forget to remember, before you remember to forget.”

I will say that I did like that right off the bat the film begins “Somewhere in Bulgaria…”. This is such a nice change from all the Syfy movies that are filmed in and around there yet claim to double for the Amazon, the Appalachians, etc.

Bruce Campbell not only stars, directs and co-produces but also wrote the story and script. His story is a real hodge-podge updating of The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant (1971) and The Thing with Two Heads (1972). The problem is that this had already been done by Carl Reiner in 1984 with All of Me (among others).

Since William Cole (Bruce Campbell)  is eventually going to become the Man with the Screaming Brain, Campbell plays the role quite straight. He is really wonderful as the Ugly American. Later he gets to show off his slapstick chops when he only controls half of his body.

Stacy Keach guest stars here as our Dr. Frankenstein, Dr. Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov. He has such wonderful lines of dialogue as “her heart is kaputski” and just gruffs it through, putting up with the antics of his assistant. He does seem to have a fun time with some of his scenes.

Ted Raimi has a much larger role here than normal as Pavel, the assistant to Dr. Ivanov. He uses it to be so goofy that I doubt that he is using the script. While I normally get a big kick out of any role I see Ted Raimi in, he could have used a bit of direction here. He has a few cute moments where he acts like Ygor but he could have used a bit of reigning in here.

Tamara Gorski and Antoinette Byron play our femme fatales here. Gorski is Tatoya, a murderous gypsy maid. Byron is Jackie Cole, the shrewish wife of our titular character.

This is a very silly movie to watch if you are in the right frame of mind. It is certainly better than most of the CGI drek on Syfy. Unfortunately that is not quite enough to recommend it. I found this amusing but I did not do much actual laughing.

So again another film to watch if you are a big fan of Bruce Campbell. Otherwise give it a pass.

I will note that the picture quality for this seemed quite fuzzy at times. As this is not normal for Netflix, I was unsure if it was them or my cable provider.

Also Ted Raimi raps over the end credits for those who are interested.

People Watch: Neda Sokolovska, who played Aida in Alien Apocalypse, plays a waitress here. Vladimir Kolev, who played Fisherman Bob in Alien Apocalypse, is Yegor the taxi driver here.